The Best Cooking Oils for Brain Health

First, let's dispel 4 common cooking oil myths.

The first week of the new year is a great time to take stock of your pantry. Let’s start with the shelf where you keep the cooking oils. Chances are it’s cluttered with many more bottles and cans than you need. And, many are probably past their prime. 

What to keep? What to toss? I am here to help. Choosing the best oil to cook with is one of the most important decisions you’ll make when eating for brain health. While nutrition science appears to be all over the map when it comes to cooking oils, it’s really more simple than it seems. In my book, I go into detail about choosing brain-friendly oils, which oils to avoid, along with a whole chapter on olive oil.

This is the first post of a regular feature of the newsletter: explaining key brain health topics. Next week I’ll share a handy downloadable cheat sheet for The BHK Guide To Cooking Oils. Today, let’s clear up some of the most common misconceptions about cooking oils. 

Cooking Oil Confusion

Most people are confused about the best oils to use in a brain-healthy diet. Perhaps you’ve read some of these blanket statements about oils and wondered if they were true: 

• Cooking oils should be eliminated from the diet. 

• Coconut oil is a brain-healthy food.

• Seed oils (like canola, rice bran, and grapeseed) are toxic. 

• You can’t cook with olive oil. 

It’s time to dispel these 4 cooking oil myths

1. Eliminating oils from the diet? This physicians group advocates eliminating all oils from the diet as a strategy to prevent or reverse heart disease. Citing Dr. Dean Ornish’s 1998 study of a very low fat diet, they use the strictest definition of a whole food plant based diet (WFPB) which considers all cooking oils (including extra-virgin olive oil) as processed foods. 

In 2023, we now know that including some healthful fats in the diet is better than going very low fat. This 2022 study shows that following a Mediterranean diet is preferable to a low fat diet after suffering a heart attack. Another landmark study published last year supports the consumption of extra-virgin olive oil for prevention of both heart and brain disorders. The researchers crunched the numbers for disease risk, but also the mortality risk: higher olive oil intake was associated with around 20% lower risk of cardiovascular, cancer, and respiratory  mortality, and a whopping 29% lower risk of neurodegenerative disease mortality.

While this study didn’t compare consuming extra-virgin oil head to head with no oils in the diet at all, it does provide this gem of a fact:

Replacing 10 grams/day (about 2 teaspoons) of butter, mayonnaise, and dairy fat with the equivalent of olive oil reduces the risk of dying by any cause by 8% to 34%. 

2. Seeds oils are toxic? Recently, seed oils (such as canola oil) are taking the blame for much of what’s wrong with the health of the nation—like rising rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s. You’ll read that seed oils are “toxic,” a word favored by non-scientists when speaking about nutrition. 

Like most nutrition fads shouted over the internet, this one is based in fact but lacks nuance. While I don’t favor seed oils in my cooking (because there are better choices), I wouldn’t call them toxic. Seed oils do harbor more omega-6 fatty acids, which have been traditionally thought to be inflammatory. But it turns out that these omega-6’s can actually be health-promoting and only tip the scale to harmful if the diet lacks omega-3’s. Here’s a balanced article about this complicated topic: Are seed oils bad for you?

3. Coconut oil is brain food? Coconut oil, along with supplements containing one of its oil components (medium chain triglycerides, or MCTs) has been touted to prevent dementia, spark brain acuity, and even reverse Alzheimer’s symptoms. This nutrition fad has had a long run, but now we have data to show the problem with coconut oil-based diets. It began with a theory that has never been proven. We know the brains of people with dementia have problems with the way they make energy from glucose, the brain’s primary source of fuel. So researchers have been looking into using alternative energy, like the MCTs in coconut oil. While there have been some anecdotal reports of people with Alzheimer’s having improved symptoms on a ketogenic diet featuring MCTs, there isn’t enough data to recommend it. 

For prevention of Alzheimer’s and dementia, the data is clear: avoid foods high in saturated fat. Ninety percent of the fat in coconut oil is saturated, which has been proven to elevate harmful cholesterol, an important risk factor for Alzheimer’s. 

Coconut oil doesn’t need to be vilified as a “bad” food, either. Like butter and other foods high in sat fats, it has a tiny niche in my cooking—stir-fries, curries, and for the flavor it adds to the Turmeric Black Pepper Granola on page 271 of my book.

4. You can’t cook with olive oil. I hear from a lot of cooking students that they don't cook with olive oil for fear of creating unhealthy byproducts. While this is partially true, extra-virgin olive oil can handle some heat. Just ask my friends in Italy—they cook with olive oil every day.

Like all cooking oils, extra-virgin olive oil has a specific smoke point—the temperature at which it stops shimmering and starts smoking. You can quite literally see this happening when heating oil in a pan and it starts to give off whispers of smoke. It is perfectly fine to cook with EVOO up to this temperature (around 375ºF for most). Above that temperature, though, it is best to choose  an oil with a higher smoke point like avocado or pecan oil. 

Two reasons why smoke point matters: flavor and polyphenols. All the delicate grassy, peppery, and floral deliciousness of good extra-virgin olive oil gets destroyed when heated above the smoke point. Heat destroys polyphenols, too. These are the health-promoting antioxidants that provide brain and heart disease risk reduction, not to mention one of the reasons fresh, high-quality olive oil commands a higher price. 

Consume EVOO within 6 months from opening the bottle or can, or 18 months from the harvest date on the label, whichever comes first.

Here’s How I Cook With Olive Oil

I have two categories of olive oil in my pantry—high-end extra-virgin and everyday extra-virgin. I don’t cook with high-end EVOO at all. Because it is the freshest, highest quality oil I have, I want to protect it from any amount of heat. This is the oil I use for salad dressings and sauces. I dip my bread in it and drizzle it on food after it’s cooked—roasted vegetables, pasta, risotto, sweet potatoes, whole grain toast, or almost anywhere I would use a smear of butter. 

My everyday EVOO is a good quality oil from the grocery store. It’s not as expensive as the high-end stuff, nor does it pack in the same quantity of polyphenols. I use it for nearly all the cooking tasks in my kitchen (unless I want a more neutral flavor) up to a temperature of about 375ºF, such as gently frying eggs, baking muffins, brownies, and granola, and in combination with butter for this Wild Blueberry Crisp topping.

When cooking eggs, for example, I warm the pan first, keeping it in the medium heat range. Once warm, I’ll add the olive oil, swirl it around, and key an eye on it. Just when it’s starting to shimmer (but before there are any wisps of smoke) I add the eggs, keep the heat medium-low, and gently baste with the olive oil as they cook.

You can also bump up the smoke point of EVOO by mixing it 50:50 with avocado oil. I use this trick when I want to roast vegetables (such as crispy Brussels sprouts) above 400ºF yet still have the flavor of olive oil.

The Optimal EVOO Dose

While it may sound like I am liberally dousing all the food I cook with a big glug of olive oil, this is not the case. When creating recipes, I use the smallest amount of any oil needed to get the job done. All cooking oils are energy-dense so it’s easy to needlessly rack up the calories in a meal if not used judiciously. Plus, you can reap the health benefits of EVOO with small amounts.

What’s the optimal daily dose? No one knows for sure. In the U.S. population cited above, researchers found that just one teaspoon of olive oil daily reduced the risk of dying from any cause by 12%. Yet there was even more upside at half a tablespoon. In Mediterranean countries, such as Greece, Italy and Spain, where the daily EVOO consumption ranges from 2 to 4 tablespoons a day, cardiovascular and overall mortality risks are even lower.

The Take-Away

• Don’t be afraid to use everyday extra-virgin olive oil for most of your moderate to low heat cooking. But don’t cook with your best quality EVOO. Instead, whisk it into sauces and salad dressing after cooking, or drizzle on a finished dish.

• For cooking at high heat, use avocado oil, nut oil (I like pecan oil), or an avocado/olive oil blend. Use coconut oil infrequently since it provides too much saturated fat to be a consistent part of a brain-healthy diet. 

• The EVOO dose for you is a delicate balance between optimal health benefits and energy density.

Take a few moments this weekend to assess the cooking oils in your kitchen. Check the harvest dates of your EVOOs. Toss any other oil that’s more than a year old. Next week I’ll share a comprehensive cooking oil guide with buying tips, a few of my favorite brands, and the occasional use oils to have on hand.

Love,

Annie